1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to insurance (including professional malpractice liability insurance) to consumers against unfavorable outcomes resulting from services, and methods of rating risks associated with the services.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The United States of America is currently facing a crisis relating to liability for medical malpractice and insurance for it. It is difficult or impossible for many physicians to pay the premiums required for adequate professional liability coverage. However, the “caps” on liability for punitive damages, that have already been enacted in some states, and are proposed in other states and at the federal level in Congress, are likely to deprive victims of adequate compensation. E.g., a young person, who is severely injured as a result of medical malpractice, may not be able to hold a normal job, and thus may be impoverished under the proposed caps, because the maximum compensation allowed under the proposed reforms may be grossly inadequate to compensate for a young person's economic losses over a lifetime. There have been a number of prior patents relating to professional malpractice and methods for reducing the cost of insurance.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,752,237, issued on May 12, 1998, to Julius Cherny, discloses a method and apparatus for providing professional liability coverage to professionals such as lawyers and accountants having large numbers of publicly traded corporate clients. It would allow the professionals or their insurance companies to sell short the stock of corporations when the price of their stock goes down due to professional malpractice. This would reduce the premiums paid by the insured professionals and/or increase the profits of the insurance companies.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,852,808, issued on Dec. 22, 1998, to Julius Cherny, discloses the same method and apparatus for providing professional liability coverage as the previous patent, but has different claims.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,909, issued on Dec. 7, 1999, to Amitabha Rakshit and Wilson A. Judd, discloses a method for establishing certifiable patient informed consent for a medical procedure. Like the instant invention, it uses software to reduce medical malpractice costs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,620, issued on Oct. 3, 2000, to Patricia L. Pissanos and Stephen M. Beasley, discloses a database for compiling information for medical malpractice litigation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,272,471, issued on Aug. 7, 2001, to Jeffrey J. Segal, discloses a method and apparatus for deterring frivolous professional liability claims, by paying the legal costs of countersuits for improper prosecution when a frivolous claim has been made.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/82876, published on Jun. 27, 2002, by David A. Martin and David R. Montgomery, discloses a process for linking credentialing information with a medical malpractice insurance application.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/87354, published on Jul. 4, 2002, by David A. Martin and David R. Montgomery, discloses the same process as the previous application, with additional claims.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/9395, published on Jan. 9, 2003, by James Weidner, David Preimesberger and A. Peter Kezirian, Jr., discloses property/casualty insurance entities and techniques, which remove unlimited liability and cap annual assessments, while retaining the lower cost achievable by a claims-paid policy.
Japanese Patent No. 2002-132955, published on May 10, 2002, inventor Takayuki Saito, discloses a system for reducing and preventing medical malpractice.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.